Happy Birthday Leah

Happy birthday to my one and only sister. She may be younger than me but I look up to her a whole bunch. Over this past week, I have thought about her a lot, and thought about growing up together. We didn't always get along (once I got so frustrated with her over some fight over a blow dryer that I threw the blow dryer at her...Sorry!) We really did want to get along though. (We would write contracts/plans about what we were going to do and not do so that we could get along better.)

For all our differences and disagreements, I have lots of great memories of us together. I remember one Sunday after church, dressing up in all of the crazy clothes we could find and putting bananas on our head and taking pictures. Another time we were trying to entertain ourselves on the boat so we started thinking up crazy things we could do and take pictures of. Once again there was a picture involving bananas on our head. We must have thought bananas were funny. She was always a lot of fun to hang out with...dancing in the living room, singing in the car as we went somewhere. Since we were so close in age, I always had someone to go places with (which was great for me since I didn't like to go places by myself). And I also always had a buddy on vacation.

Leah was also the wise one when it came to the trials and challenges of teenage years. She was the best listener and counselor. I remember many conversations between the two of us as we sat on our beds and I told her all of my worries. She listened so well and always had the greatest words of advice and encouragement.

One of the neatest things that happened with the two of us is that she had her first child almost a year to the day before I had mine. She got to do something before me, and I got to call her for advice. It was great. Although she is younger than me in age, I think of her more as a big sister than little sister. I look up to her and admire her tons. I still appreciate her council and advice. I wish we didn't live so far apart so that we could spend lots of time together and she could teach me all she knows. She is a great gardner, canner, mom, leader, is well read, and the list goes on and on.

Happy Birthday Leah. I love you and miss you!

"I'm so glad we missed that turn."

 Last weekend Rone and I spent the weekend in Newport, RI.  We've been there before, which is why we went back.  We love it there and it makes me very nostalgic for sailing.  The first night we were there we ordered pizza from a delicious hole in the wall place downtown. On our way back to the Navy Base, we took a wrong turn.  I was not doing a good job of following the phone's directions which is why we missed the turn.  As usual, I got frustrated with myself and was apologizing to R for giving him bad directions. Very quickly my feelings changed and in a matter of minutes I found myself saying, "I'm so glad we missed that turn."

We ended up on a street of really old houses ... most of them had historical markers on the side with the date the house was built.  We saw several in the 1700s and 1800s.  They were beautiful homes that had clearly been redone.  (Not cheap either... we got on Trulia when we got back to the hotel because we passed one that was for sale... and found that it was selling for 1.9 million.)  Here is one of the homes on one of the corners that I jumped out to take a picture of.  This house was built in 1758.

We traveled the street for several blocks seeing tons of old beautiful homes and imagining Newport in the 1700 and 1800s.  More than once I repeated, "I'm so glad we missed that turn.  We would never have seen all of these houses if we hadn't have missed that turn.  We would have missed seeing this really great part of Newport."

As I reflected on this experience I realized that we sometimes have similar experiences with events in our lives.  Sometimes there are opportunities or experiences that we miss that leave us feeling frustrated or confused.  For me, it was a long term relationship that did't work out, a teaching job that I didn't get that I interviewed for in Utah, and the job that Rone didn't get in D.C., just to name a few big ones.  In the moment (sometime the moment was much longer than a moment.) there was frustration but the change in my route took me some place better.  There were "thing to see" and experiences that I couldn't even imagine for how wonderful they would be that I would have missed out on.  Looking back I can now definitely say, "I'm so glad I missed that turn."

I am thankful that we have a Heavenly Father who knows the best route for our growth, development, and happiness, and that he helps us find it if we seek His help and guidance.  And for those turns that we miss, some of them we will definitely look back on and say, "I'm so glad we missed that turn."

Counting My Blessings

It has been a week since I finished a 6 week long term sub job for the 7^th/8^th grade math teacher at our local middle school where I sub on a regular basis.  Ever since leaving the classroom almost 15 years ago when we moved to New York, I have dreamed about getting to teaching math in a classroom again.  I love teaching school.  Consequently I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I was kind of excited when I got asked to be the long term sub for the math teacher who had to be out for surgery.  I was also concerned though, because on top of what would now be a full time job (plus more because anyone who teaches knows that you don’t get it all done between 7:30 am and 3:30 pm) I still had all of the other responsibilities of my life like wife, Mom, 2 graduate school classes that require me to commute in to NYC two nights a week and math students that I tutor for 4 hours a week.  I did some thinking and problem-solving trying to figure out how I was going to make it all work.  As always, Rone was completely supportive, knowing that he was going to be picking up the slack again, just like last semester.

            I said “yes”, with the following plan in place.  First, work really hard the first 2.5 weeks so that I could be ahead in lesson planning, etc. so that when my graduate school classes started on the 18^th, subbing wouldn’t be as big of a commitment.  Second, cancel tutoring for two of my students (that takes an hour per week off of my schedule) because I was now going to be their math teacher for 6 weeks and that would be a conflict of interest.  Third, the rest of my tutoring students are high school students who had a week of final exams and the beginning of the new semester coinciding with week 4 and 5 of the long term sub job so I cancelled both of those weeks of tutoring.  They met with me in advance to prepare for their exams and then survived the first week of the new semester without tutoring help.

            Although the plan was a good one, I still quickly realized that I was in way over my head.  I had three classes to write lesson plans for each day (plus all of the other things that eat up teachers’ time.)  I love common core mathematics and the standards but I do not like the curriculum that New York has created to support the standards so prepping for one of the three classes, the 7^th grade math class was quite challenging.  I often spent more than 1.5 hours preparing to teach a 45-minute lesson.  More than once I wondered if I was going to make it through the 6 weeks, but then the blessings came.  And so I will count them.

1. Week 3 of subbing:  This semester one of my graduate school classes meets on Tuesday night and the other meets on Wednesday night.  Because the semester started on a Wednesday I only had one class to attend this week and consequently only one class to complete homework for.
2.  Week 4 of subbing:  This week started with a teacher work day on Monday since it was the end of the quarter.  After getting grades taken care of I still had a couple of hours during the day to write lesson plans and because there hadn’t been school on Monday I had one less days worth of lesson plans that I had to prepare the week before. 
3. Still week 4 of subbing:  A snowstorm came and cancelled school for Tuesday.  Now I had a whole day to write lesson plans (and a couple of tests and reviews that were coming up) and I again had one less days worth of lesson plans to prepare
4. Still week 4 of subbing:   I had to go to class two nights this week but when I went to the first night of my Tuesday night class, the professor told us we wouldn’t have any homework this first class.   So I again, only had one class to complete homework for.
5. Week 5 of subbing: A snow day caused us to early release one day.  It was like being given 3.5 bonus hours in one day.
6. Week 6 of subbing:  Another snow storm caused a 2 hour delay so I got to sleep in and catch up on some sleep.  Teacher training days on Thursday and Friday shortened the week for me since I did not need to attend them.

In many ways these things seem kind of insignificant but they came right when I needed them.  At those times when I didn't think I was going to be able to make it, a blessing game.   

Two other big blessings of this experience were the result of what I learned from this experience.  First, teaching has changed a lot in 15 years.  The math class of today looks very different.  For one thing, there are children with special needs who need differentiated instruction and require attention during class as well as additional time outside of class to follow up with their aids and special Ed teachers in order to coordinate the best educational experience possible for them.  So, in my romanticized ideas of returning to full time teaching I really didn’t know what that would entail.  Now I have a more realistic idea of what the job looks like today.  The other blessing came in helping me figure out what I want to teach.  I have only taught middle school and I loved teaching middle school but I have thought a lot about possibly trying to get a high school job when I start teaching again.  After observing and talking to a couple of high school teachers last semester and then being back spending my days with middle school students, I want to teach middle school again.  I will be sad to get a bunch of my math skills back and then once again not really use them because I am back teaching middle school, but I love that developmental age and enjoy the opportunity to still change the course of a student’s mathematical education by making a difference for them in 6^th, 7^th, or 8^th grade.

Hartford Temple

So much has happened in the last 10 months but one thing that we don't ever want to forget and that we wanted to share was all that we have been able to be a part of in connection with the Hartford Temple Open House, Cultural Celebration, and Dedication.

We made 8 two-hundred mile round trips to Hartford in 8 weeks.  It was a small sacrifice to make for all of the amazing experiences we got to participate in.

Here are the highlights

R and I got asked to help with the VIP tours for the open house.  We traveled to Hartford one Monday evening for our training.  Here is what I wrote about it in my journal.  "There are 8 stakes that make up the Hartford Temple District so in attendance were all of the stake presidency members from those stakes and their wives as well as people form the church’s public relations office and other members of the temple department.  My favorite part of the evening was the more than 1.5 hours we spent in the temple as Elder Wilson (head of the church temple department) lead us on a tour.  He told us about the architecture, the pictures, and the materials that were used to the build the temple.  But my favorite part of the tour was him telling us about the things he talks about in each room of the temple when he takes people through for the VIP tours.  It was so uplifting and spirit filled to hear him talk about each room.  It was wonderful to spend so much time in the temple talking about the temple."

It turned out that once they organized the shifts, for the VIP tours R and I weren't going to be assigned a group.   We were told that we could bring our own group of friends if we wanted to on the night we were originally assigned to help with tours.  So, we quickly contacted some people (mostly R's colleagues) and that Wednesday evening we took 8 friends on a tour of the temple. Since it was a VIP tour night, we got to lead the tour and spend as long as we wanted in each room, talking about the rooms and answering questions.  Here is part of what I wrote in my journal.  "We spent over an hour in the temple.  It was such a great experience to take people we know and get to share the temple with them.  In our training we were told that this was not to be a proselyting experience.  We were to let the temple speak for itself and so we did.  The temple clearly speaks of the Savior, Heavenly Father’s love for his children and His plan for us, our eternal nature, and the eternal nature of families. It was a most wonderful, spirit filled evening."

Two days later, on a Friday, I drove C, her friend, and P to Hartford so we could attend the open house.  (P was going to get to go with my parents in a couple of weeks when C, R and I served at the open house but we weren't sure what our assignments would be that day so we weren't sure if C would get to see the inside of the temple that day.  We wanted to make sure she got to go on a tour and we wanted to take her friend.)  

 It felt a little crazy to making that 200 mile trip for the third time in 5 days but it was so worth it to be in the temple with the girls.

 A couple of weeks later R, C, and I got to serve at the Open House for 8 hours on a Saturday.  C spent the first shift taking shoe covers off of people's shoes as they came out of the temple.  She said it was a fun place to serve because she got to see people's expressions as they came out and over hear their conversations as they talked about what they loved about the tour.  On breaks she would join a tour and go through the temple which she got to do 4 times that morning.   R and I spent the morning leading tours.  Since it wasn't VIP tours, we only had one speaking part, at the beginning of the tour, and then after that we just led our group from room to room where other people in the rooms did the talking.  Each tour took about 30 minutes and then we would wait in line to take another tour through.  After lunch, R was on parking details so C became my follower and she had I led more tours through the temple.  

Mom and Dad came over with P and went on a tour while we finished up our shifts.  By the end of the day I had gone through the temple and heard the presentations 7 times.  It was wonderful to basically spend the day in the temple, to feel the spirit there, and to hear the presentations over and over again.

All the youth in the 8 stakes participated in the temple cultural celebration last night.  4 of our trips to Hartford over the last 8 weeks were to take C to choir practice.  She auditioned for and got a spot in the 20 person a cappella youth choir that would sing in the cultural celebration.  

That choir also made up 1/4 of the larger choir that was also singing one of the main numbers in the cultural celebration.

In addition, each stake in the temple district had a dance number they were performing.

It was fun to see the friendships C was able to form with other youth from all over the temple district, as she participated in the choir.  The a cappella choir did a beautiful job and the other choir sang well too and you could tell Corinne was having a great time on the dance number.  We watched a broadcast of the performance and got to see C on the screen several times.  (These pictures of the Cultural Celebration were taken by a friend.)  Elder Eyring and Elder and Sister Holland were in attendance at the celebration.

Because of the many different numbers that C was in, she said that two different times she had to crouch and run right in front of where they were sitting.  She said, "I could have just stopped and shook their hands but I thought that would have been inappropriate."

Today we drove to Hartford for the temple dedication.  It was freezing cold and very windy so we didn't end up taking a picture.  I took this quick picture as we hurried back to the car.

Then C and I took a selfie so we would have some proof of being there.  R and P were already in the car trying to get warm.

We had the blessing of being in the Celestial room for the session we attended.  Elder and Sister Holland and Elder Eyring were, of course, in the room.  From where P was sitting she had a direct line of sight to Elder Eyring.  She said that at one point, he made eye contact with her, so she waved at him.  She said it was in the middle of someone's talk so he made a small gesture, smiled and tipped his head at her so it wouldn't be distracting.  The spirit in the room throughout the whole dedication was amazing.  I couldn't hold back tears and could hardly sing as we stood and sang the "The Spirit of God".  I am so thankful that we got to be a part of so many aspects of the open house and dedication.  I will remember this forever.

Another excerpt from my journal, "I am so thankful for temples.  How blessed I am to live at a time when temples dot the earth and more are being built every year.  The blessings of the temple are many.  I am thankful for the covenants that I have made in the temple and the blessing and strength that they give me.  I am thankful for the way in which family history and temple work helps me to know and love my ancestors and how ordinances there mean I am part of an Eternal Family consisting of those who came before me, Rone and I, our children, and there children, continuing for generations.  I am thankful for what I learn and am reminded of each time I attend the temple.  I am thankful for the perspective that the temple brings to my life."